Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump took to Twitter Monday to slam The New York Times for a story posted Saturday that painted Trump as a man who frequently issued unwanted advances, demeaned women who worked for him and continually focused on and commented about how women look.
Trump, and at least one of the women included in the story are complaining that incidents reported were taken out of context in the piece that featured interviews with 50 people that Trump had interacted with socially and in business.
Rowanne Brewer Lane, one woman quoted in the story, told CNN Monday that the New York Times piece -- "Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private"-- did not correctly reflect how she felt about her encounter with Trump, one in which the Times reported that Trump had asked Lane to change out of her clothes and into a swimsuit only minutes after they first met.
“He suddenly took me by the hand, and he started to show me around the mansion,” the story read. “He asked me if I had a swimsuit with me. I said no. I hadn’t intended to swim. He took me into a room and opened drawers and asked me to put on a swimsuit.”
Lane appeared on the show “Fox and Friends” Monday to tell her side of the story.
"The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure my story that I was telling came across, they promised several times that they would do it accurately, they told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly and it absolutely was not,” Lane said. “They did take quotes from what I said and they put a negative connotation on it. They spun it to where it appeared negative. I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump.”
Other woman quoted in the piece told their stories of encounters with Trump.
Temple Taggart, 1997 Miss Utah USA
“He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, “Oh my God, gross.” He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like “Wow, that’s inappropriate.”
Taggart said she met Trump another time and he told her, “ ‘We’re going to have to tell them you’re 17,’ ” Ms. Taggart recalled him telling her, “because in his mind, 21 is too old. I was like, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.’ ”
Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, Miss Universe
Lee recalled in the story that she felt Trump sought to validate that the women in his life were beautiful. In 1997, Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, was helping with a beauty pageant and he asked Lee what she thought of her. “Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?” Lee recalled. “I was like, ‘Really?’ That’s just weird. She was 16. That’s creepy.”
Jill Harth, pageant coordinator
Harth described her and her boyfriend/business partner at their initial meeting with Trump at Trump Tower.
"Donald Trump stared at me throughout that meeting. He stared at me even while George was giving his presentation. … In the middle of it he says to George, “Are you sleeping with her?” Meaning me. And George looked a little shocked and he said, “Well, yeah.” And he goes, “Well, for the weekend or what?”
Trump described The Times story as a “hit piece” Monday, and tweeted as much:
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